Dolphin’s Pearl Deluxe is Novomatic’s underwater remake of Dolphin’s Pearl, online through Greentube since April 2009 and the sea-themed sibling of Book of Ra Deluxe. It plays five reels and 10 lines: the dolphin is a wild that doubles any win it completes, and three or more pearls start 15 free games with every win tripled. It returns 95.13%. The free demo below is a similar dolphin pokie, no download.
Dolphin’s Pearl Deluxe runs on five reels and three rows with 10 lines that pay left to right; one source says the lines can be set from one to 10, another lists them as fixed. Stakes are set by the casino: a typical spin starts at 10 cents, or 1 cent a line, and the top stake runs from £5 on UK builds to $50 or €100 elsewhere. The most cited return is 95.13%, but other settings exist, and published figures range from 92.19% to 96.18%. Volatility is rated high by most sources and very high by one, and about one spin in four pays something, by one review’s count. The maximum win is disputed, with published figures from 2,745x to a theoretical 27,000x the total bet.
Dolphin's Pearl Deluxe Pokies Characteristics
Wins run left to right on adjacent reels from reel 1. Most symbols need three of a kind, but the dolphin, lobster, manta ray and, unusually, the 9 also pay for two, per the most detailed published table. The dolphin is the wild: it stands in for everything except the pearl, and any win it completes as a substitute is paid double, while five dolphins on a line pay their own top prize instead. The pearl in its shell is the scatter; it pays in any position, and three or more start the free games.
No source lists a bonus buy, a jackpot or any stacked or expanding symbol, and sources disagree on whether autoplay is offered. UK copies may differ from everything below: a UK casino run by Greentube itself says the rules have changed and points players to the in-game paytable.
Only two pays are confirmed by more than one published source; both are shown as multiples of the total bet with all 10 lines played.
Values for the other symbols (lobster and manta ray, seahorse, angelfish and the cards from ace down to 9) are not consistently published, and no official Greentube paytable could be found, so read them in the information screen. Three or more pearls pay a scatter win as well as starting the free games. The dolphin line is the one that matters: 900x the total bet in the base game and 2,700x once the free games triple it.
Three or more pearls anywhere award 15 free games, and every win in the round is tripled. Three or more pearls during the round add another 15, per the one rule summary that gives a number for the Deluxe, and the original Dolphin’s Pearl works the same way. No cap on retriggers is published.
No published summary says whether the dolphin’s 2x and the round’s 3x combine into 6x, so check the in-game help before assuming it. The theoretical 27,000x ceiling needs a screen of 15 dolphins in this round, paying on all 10 lines, and no source confirms the reels can show that many. On a high-volatility game, this round is where a session is made or lost.
One catalogue lists a double-up gamble on the Deluxe. Descriptions come from the original Dolphin’s Pearl, where it is a red or black guess on a face-down card: a right guess doubles the win, a wrong one loses it. No source publishes a limit, which is probably set by the casino, and most sources on the Deluxe do not mention it. On a fair 50/50 card it leaves the long-run return unchanged; it only makes a win bigger or makes it disappear.
At 95.13% the game keeps about 5 cents of every dollar bet over the long run, a little expensive for an online pokie. The 92.19% UK build keeps nearly 8 cents and the 96.18% listed by one database would keep under 4, so the information screen is worth checking. Novomatic’s page for the land-based Deluxe rates its volatility 4 on an undefined scale where Book of Ra Deluxe scores 3, and with about a quarter of spins paying, three in four return nothing.
At 10 cents a spin, $20 buys 200 spins, about 50 of which pay something; at $1 a spin it buys 20, barely a sample on a game shaped like this. No source we checked gives the free games trigger rate; long runs without them are normal. The 27,000x ceiling is the wrong number to plan around: the best result in a simulation of a billion rounds was 4,638x.
The original Dolphin’s Pearl is the land-based Novomatic slot machine that the Deluxe remade a few years later, per one guide; its launch year is not published. It has the same doubling dolphin, 15 free games at 3x and red or black gamble, but 9 lines that can be set to 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9, and a return of 95.13% or 95.29% depending on the source. The Deluxe added a tenth line online and sharper graphics, yet Novomatic’s page for the land-based Deluxe, the MGD1T build, still lists 9 lines, as the land-based Book of Ra Deluxe does.
Greentube has since reused the name. Dolphin’s Pearl Deluxe 10 (2021) shares little beyond the theme: one catalogue lists 100 lines, cascading reels, a 95.07% return, low to medium volatility and a 4,000x maximum. Dolphin’s Pearl Deluxe Bonus Spins, Dolphin’s Pearl Deluxe Top Spin and Cash Connection Dolphin’s Pearl are separate Greentube titles not covered here, and Dolphin Treasure, which one site lists as comparable, is not part of the series. In a lobby, plain Dolphin’s Pearl Deluxe is the 10-line game reviewed here.
The reels sit over deep ultramarine water with algae and fish, and the symbols are the dolphin, a pearl in a shell, a lobster, a manta ray, a seahorse, an angelfish and the cards from 9 to ace. Novomatic sells it as a lively sea adventure with high-resolution graphics; one reviewer called the look retro and old-fashioned, with a nostalgic charm, and both are fair. The sound is classic slot-machine effects with no background music, tinny enough that the same reviewer muted it. It runs in HTML5 on desktop, tablets and Android and iOS phones.
No evidence was found that Dolphin’s Pearl or the Deluxe ever ran on Australian pub, club or casino floors: the ACT approval records checked list no Novomatic games, and Novomatic is not on the Northern Territory’s approved supplier list, though both were spot checks. Novomatic’s Australian link is its majority stake in Ainsworth Game Technology, the ASX-listed Sydney pokie maker, and none of the reporting says Ainsworth sells Novomatic games here. For playing Dolphin’s Pearl online, the picture is unclear: Greentube is described as focused on regulated markets, no restricted-country list could be found, one catalogue counts the game at casinos in 81 countries without naming Australia, and no offshore casino accepting Australians could be confirmed as carrying it. Availability varies, so the lobby search is the way to check. No official free play version from Novomatic or Greentube could be found, and the free Windows app of the same name in the Australian Microsoft Store comes from a third-party publisher.
Dolphin’s Pearl Deluxe keeps the rules of an older generation of pokies, and that is the appeal: one wild that doubles, one round that triples and a line of five dolphins that dwarfs everything else. It suits players who like classic Novomatic games and high volatility, and will sit through a quiet base game waiting for three pearls. It does not suit anyone after a high return, modern features, a bonus buy or an official paytable. The one thing to check is the return in the information screen, because the same game is listed at anything from 92.19% to 96.18%.
95.13% in most sources. One database lists 96.18% and a UK casino runs a 92.19% build, so check the information screen.
Three or more pearls anywhere give 15 free games with every win tripled, plus a scatter win. Three or more during the round add another 15.
Figures disagree: a theoretical 27,000x the total bet for a screen of dolphins in the free games, 4,638x in a billion-round simulation and 2,745x on one UK build. A line of five dolphins pays 900x the total bet.
It substitutes for every symbol except the pearl and doubles any win it completes as a substitute. Five dolphins on a line pay 9,000x the line bet, the top line pay.
No record of it on Australian pub or club floors was found, and no offshore casino accepting Australians could be confirmed as carrying it, so check the lobby search.
The original has 9 adjustable lines, the Deluxe 10 lines online and sharper graphics. The features are the same and the returns close: 95.13% or 95.29% for the original, usually 95.13% for the Deluxe.
